(13-Sep-2010, 08:17 AM)madhav Wrote: Some of my religious friends were shocked when they saw some Swami swearing loudly in gutter language in his Ashram at his subordiantes after the "darshan" was over and everyone was leaving.

That was nothing compared to the actual behavior that these charlatans engage in:

Following up, I just want to speculate a bit on the possible reasons behind the actions of these Swamijis. My first natural suspicion goes to the fact that these Swamijis are supposed to live a celibate lifestyle. Of course needless to say, to what extent such a lifestyle is possible is of course evident from the scandals which occur very frequently among most of these Swamijis.

A parallel to these scandals can be seen in the child abuse scandals of the Roman Catholic Church which have been recently rocking the Catholic communities all over the world. Most people agree that it is due to the celibacy rules imposed upon the priests by the Church that they release their sexual frustration on the unfortunate altar boys and other innocent children around them. When seen from a neutral viewpoint, this seems truly horrible and disgusting, but common sense will tell you that their "celibacy" vows directly lead to these poor children being abused. There are some Catholics who argue for allowing the priests to marry, but the Pope has repeatedly struck down all such suggestions.

Anyway, such scandals will only lead to the gradual deligitimization of religion in the eyes of the people, but the victims of such corrupt Swamis, priests and Popes will be sadly scarred for life.